EN -A powerful poetic portrait of honour killing in the rural Kurdish southeast of Turkey. Twenty-two-year-old Dilan pays for her forbidden love for a young man in a neighbouring village with her life. She has shamed the family and therefore must die at the hands of her own brothers. And as tradition will have it, the killing must be compensated. Yet another victim must suffer, and six-year-old Emine is given to Dilan’s relatives.

Awards

Deben Van Dam’s short film The Way of All Flesh has won the prize for best picture at the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival (31 May – 7 June), while Houses With Small Windows nabbed the first prize in the Mediterranean and Arab countries competition of the festival.

As part of the international competition, The Way of All Flesh competed against 65 other short films from promising young directors coming from 30 countries worldwide.

Nine short films from Flanders take part in the international competition of the International Short Film Festival Psarokokalo in Athens, Greece. Six live-action shorts, two animation films and one documentary project made the line-up. The eighth edition of the festival runs from 10 till 16 July and presents some 120 shorts, selected out of 4,200 submissions.

Leonardo Van Dijl’s black-and-white short Get Ripped exposes the mental deterioration of a young man determined to transform his body. In its home territory, the film already screened at the Leuven International Short Film Festival, while it has also been confirmed for Outfest LA, which kicks off on July 10. The film is to take part in the fest’s International Male section.

There's a strong Flemish presence at this year's Valladolid International Film Festival in Spain (19-26 October), where Stijn Coninx’ feature film Marina and Caroline Strubbe’s I’m the same I’m an other screen in the Official Competition and Bart Van den Bempt’s debut feature 82 Days in Aprilis in the fest’s Meeting Point programme. Bülent Öztürk’s short film Houses With Small Windows and Pieter Coudyzer’sThe Wake complete the Flemish line-up.

As part of the Official Competition, both Marina and I’m the same I’m an other are vying for the Golden and Silver Spike with cash awards worth €60,000 and €20,000, respectively, to support a Spanish release of the film.

Bülent Öztürk’s Houses With Small Windows scooped the Best European Short Award at this year's Venice International Film Fest. This after receiving its world première in the fest’s Orizzonti section. Following the kudo, Houses With Small Windows is automatically nominated for the short film category of the European Film Awards.

A powerful yet muted portrait of an honour killing in the rural Kurdish southeast region of Turkey, Houses With Small Windows sees 22-year-old Dilan. With her forbidden love for a young man in a neighbouring village, she has shamed her family and therefore must die at the hands of her own brothers.

In Bülent Öztürk's Houses With Small Windows, a young Kurdish woman has shamed her family and therefore has to die at the hands of her own brothers. According to tradition the killing must be balanced out so yet another victim is made.

Text Ian Mundell

Bülent Oztürk was born in Turkey and came to Belgium as a student refugee in 1995. He attended film school in Brussels, returning to Turkey to shoot his graduation film, a documentary about the inhabitants of a supposedly deserted village. He followed this with Waiting, a documentary about survivors of the earthquake that hit eastern Turkey in October 2011.